REVIEWS 553 Bokovoy, Melissa. Peasantsand Communists. PoliticsandIdeology in therugoslav Countyside, I94I -I953. PittSeriesinRussianandEastEuropean Studies. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA, I998. XVii + 21I Pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. $40.00. THIs book explores the policies pursued by the communists towards the peasants in Yugoslaviafrom the era of the PartisanWar to the abandonment of collectivization. During the war, the partisans were forced back to the villages and had to learn to coexist with the peasants, whose own future objectivesdifferedradicallyfromcommunistaims.This made the Partyaware of the need to avoid antagonizing the peasants, especially through dekulakizationand forcedcollectivization.Bokovoydealswith the earlyconflicts between the faction associated with Hebrang which wanted quickly to collectivize in orderto build a strongagriculturepreparatoryto industrialization , and the triumphant group identified with Kidric, Pijade and Djilas. It was their policies in 1947 which launched Yugoslavia into its absurdly ambitious firstfive-yearplan without firstdealing with the peasant problem, and consequently required them to depend on administrative coercion to extract resourcesfrom private agriculture.The Soviets opposed this firstfiveyear plan, even though it was modelled on their own. Their own plans for Yugoslavia were akin to those earlier pursued by Germany, of turning the countryinto a controlledsupplierof rawmaterials,dependent foritsindustrial goods on the hegemonist power. As Hebrang's gradualismand emphasis on agriculture would have produced basically this result, the struggle over agrarianpolicy became intertwinedwith the Yugoslav-Sovietconflict. By the end of 1948, the Yugoslav economy, deprived of support from the bloc, had become hopelessly over-strained, and it became urgent to press agriculturemore severelyto meet its targetsfor the delivery of food and raw materials. It was this crisiswhich led to forced collectivization in 1949. The book is framed around the collectivization decision and its political consequences , but it is not wholly convincing in the explanations it offers.There seems to be a glaring shortfallin the study one which is foreshadowedby its title its cursory handling of economics. Bokovoy notes that the loss of Soviet support for the Plan led to (still greater) prioritization for heavy industry,and put the production of agriculturalequipment 'on hold' (p. 97) But as a result, the collectivization drive could not be supported by the infusion of capital needed to achieve its declared aims agricultural rationalization and the increase in the capacity of the collectives to deliver surplusesto the citiesand the army.Bokovoyarguesthatcollectivizationplans were in fact 'nuanced' (p. IO7) to avoid violent confrontation with the peasants: they were to depend on voluntarism, which implies offering the prospect to the peasants of a better life in the collective than out of it. But obviouslythiswas unrealistic,unlessone believed thatpeasanteconomy made such inefficient use of resources that quick collectivization, as an organizational form,would automaticallyraiseproductivity.EdvardKardelj,deceived by bad statisticalreporting, may have expected this, but the expectation was wholly unrealistic. So collectivization inevitably became coercive, whatever the authorities had planned, for they had no convincing incentives to offer, 554 SEER, 79, 3, 200I and no tool other than coercion to achieve their targets. The response was a wave of ruralrevolt, in particular,the bloodily suppressedCazin rebellion of I950. So why, knowing that the resourcesto sustaina consensual collectivization did not exist, and that the costs of coerced collectivization could be so huge as to render the operation pointless in economic terms, did the communistspressaheadwith it?Bokovoyneeded to answerthis question, but failedto do so. When discussingthe kulak,Bokovoy raisesan importantpoint the Party isolated, over-taxed, imprisonedand beat up kulaks,but -as Kardeljmade clear, it did not want to destroy them. But was failure to 'dekulakize'really part of the Party'scautious approach to the peasantry?Or was it because the kulak alone had the capacity to supply the resources for which the state hungered?Wasthisnot simplya triumphof pragmaover dogma? Central to Bokovoy's thesis is the insistence that passive resistance by peasants was instrumentalin aborting the communists'plans for them. This resistanceshe documents through the debates of the period, which she claims are the only sourcesfortrackingpeasantresistance.In herwords,the peasants left 'few paper trails'(p. 159). I am not wholly convinced by this what of the &migre literatureandjournals?What of autobiographicalmaterialswritten at a later date?Why if all else were lacking did she make no attempt at collecting oralhistory? The period I951-53 and the abandonment of collectivization...
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Apr 14, 2023
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